Bulldogs Take Third Place in Inaugural Women's Team Race Regatta

MEDFORD, Mass. -
The No. 2 Bulldog women's sailing team added another top-three finish to their strong early season performances with a third-place finish at the Joseph Duplin Women's 3-on-3 Team Race over the weekend. Opposition included seven of the top fifteen teams in the nation, team racing for the first time in an all-female collegiate team race regatta.

The regatta, hosted by Tufts University and the Medford Boat Club on Upper Mystic Lake in Medford, Mass. was sailed in a fleet of larks. All 45 races of the ten-team round-robin format and one tie break race were completed on Saturday in a building east-south easterly breeze ranging from three to twelve knots. Sunday featured five consolation races (a round robin including the bottom six teams based on results from Saturday) followed by 12 gold fleet races (top four teams). Conditions on Sunday included constant rain with a shifty four to ten knot northeasterly in the morning and an eight to twelve knot north-north easterly in the afternoon.

Despite the shifty and unpredictable breeze and the relative inexperience of the players in collegiate team racing, the Bulldogs brought home an admirable third-place team finish. Yale won seven of the nine races sailed on Saturday to put them in the gold fleet after Saturday and seven of the fifteen races completed over the entire regatta, finishing behind No. 5 Boston College and No. 3 Harvard with scores of thirteen and twelve wins overall, respectively.

The Bulldogs showed depth and flexibility with multiple player combinations in each of the three boats on the Yale team. The planned line-up was senior Kate Hagemann with sophomore crew Elizabeth Brim, junior Sarah Lihan with sophomore crew Tatyana Camejo, and junior Rebecca Jackson with freshman crew Genoa Warner, but Brim switched positions with Hagemann in two races on Saturday, Jackson raced with freshman crew Alexandra Kerr for the duration of the regatta, and Warner took over at the helm for Hagemann on Sunday.

Ken Legler, head coach of the Tufts University sailing team, ran the event this weekend and included praise toward the overall level of play in his score and regatta report from the weekend, an encouraging outcome of the first collegiate women's team race regatta.

"The level of team racing was outstanding. It is clear that these women's teams prepared for this event. The teams started well, sailed fast, and executed close quarter maneuvers throughout the day."

The Bulldogs' next competition is at the Women's Brad Dellenbaugh Trophy hosted by Brown University on Apr. 4-5.